Mr Abbott, what is your definition of decency?

To what depths has our country descended? ''You don't want a wimp for Immigration Minister.'' Thus our Prime Minister defends Scott Morrison's lack of compassion, extolling him as ''a decent man'' (The Age, 24/2). What is Mr Abbott's definition of ''decency''? Is a ''decent'' country one that condones the offshore torture and killing of asylum seekers rejected from its shores? Is it one that seeks to offload its responsibilities under an international legal convention by sending those escaping persecution to some of the poorest countries (East Timor, Papua New Guinea and, now, even, Cambodia)?

Well, Prime Minister, we may not want ''a wimp'' but nor do we want a bully. And most Australians do not wish to be seen by the rest of the world as indecently selfish and heartless.

Janet Upcher, Battery Point, Tas

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Safe in our complacency

The Prime Minister is correct: Australians don't want a ''wimp'' defending our borders. What we want is a bumbling sycophant who will tell desperate people searching and pleading for a better life that they can just bugger off and leave us in our smug, complacent little corner of the world to pursue our mindless interests and spend our wealth how we decide.

Cheryl Day, Mentone

Left's policy hardly compassionate

When some 1000 people died at sea under the Labor/Greens compassionate policy, I don't recall mass protests by their supporters calling for Rudd/Gillard to walk the plank.

Mr Abbott was elected on a policy of stopping the boats and has simply continued the Manus Island solution started by Mr Rudd, who promised to create a "hell" for cheats. The public wants an orderly immigration program and are sick and tired of the navy being used as a taxi service. The real issue is that the Refugee Convention states that a person seeking refuge can do so legally in a country closest to where they are fleeing from persecution. How does Australia fit into that category when people are coming from Somalia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan?

Coke Tomyn, Camberwell

Step back from loaded language

A recent poll had 60 per cent of us urging the government to ''increase the severity'' of our policy towards asylum seekers. Yet most people are compassionate when confronted by the suffering of others. Why, then, the contradiction? It is becoming increasingly clear that public opinion has been manipulated towards support of the inhumane policies of this government and the preceding one. Terms such as ''transferees'', ''queue jumpers'', ''illegal immigrants'', ''sovereign borders'' and ''operational matters'' are examples of the campaign to dehumanise ordinary people who are desperate enough to risk their lives in the attempt to find a safe place in a danger-filled world. We should all step back from the loaded language of ministers and some media outlets and simply think, ''How would I like to be treated by a nation to which I had fled when in fear of my life?'' Fellow Australians, forget propaganda; try imagination.

Jeremy Barrett, Malmsbury

'Right' side of the debate

Do I detect a whiff of double standards in Mr Abbott's defence of his Immigration Minister - that Mr Morrison ''had used the best information available to him at the time''. No such benefit of the doubt was given to ABC and Fairfax reporters in the ''burnt hands'' saga. It seems leeway is only given if you are reporting on the ''right'' side of the issue.

Ian Thomas, Armadale

Cushy conditions

When the Gillard government floated the ''Malaysia solution'' the then Coalition vociferously opposed it, I thought it was because the protections offered to asylum seekers were considered inadequate. Now the Abbott government is pursuing a ''Cambodian solution'' . Clearly Malaysia would have given asylum seekers too much of a good time; Cambodia is OK precisely because of the inherent deterrence factor.

But as our Prime Minister has pointed out, we don't want wimps running ''border protection'', so come on, guys, show a bit of creativity, not to say strategic thinking, and start talks with Pyongyang. A ''North Korean solution'' would be a win/win. Asylum seekers would be even further deterred and any that did end up there would do a sterling job of reinforcing the notion that their earlier life must have been pretty desperate.

Sarah Cowdery, Barton, ACT

Plenty of precedents

''Can any of you think of a government program that actually killed people?'' asks Mr Abbott when questioned about the home insulation royal commission. Yes, I can. Here's just three.

The Abbott government program that sends asylum seekers to Manus Island (1 dead, so far); the Howard government programs that sent our troops to Iraq (two dead) and Afghanistan (40 dead); and the Menzies government program that sent our troops to Vietnam (521 dead).

And now we have Attorney-General George Brandis demolishing 113 years of parliamentary convention by releasing Cabinet papers to the royal commission - a clearly vindictive act designed to compromise past and present opponents.

I suggest Labor retaliate by stating that when it is next in government it will follow Brandis' precedent, starting with any or all of this government's decisions. It could go on to include the Howard government's decisions on the Iraq war, its knowledge of the wheat board bribes to Saddam Hussein, the children overboard lies, the Securency bank note bribes, and so on. Abbott and Brandis may well receive phone calls from John Howard, Alexander Downer, Peter Reith and others suggesting they reconsider.

Peter Lord, Box Hill

Greed close to home

Treasurer Joe Hockey is warning the sky will fall in unless we rein in health and pension expenditure. May I suggest he look a little closer to home, and disclose what it costs the nation annually to fund the pensions and entitlements of ex-politicians. And explain why these ''entitlements'' are asset and income exempt, unlike all other pensions.

He argues that when the age pension was introduced, the average life expectancy was 55, and is now 85. Parliamentary pensions were introduced in the days when train drivers and shearers were elected to Parliament, people who might struggle to find employment when their political careers ended. That cannot be said of the overwhelming numbers of lawyers and bankers in politics today.

Thomas Ryan, St Helens, Tas

Conflicted priorities

If the government were concerned about the cost of healthcare in 20 years' time it would encourage preventative measures among this generation. The focus could include tackling obesity, smoking, heavy alcohol consumption and the lack of exercise. All can be addressed through education and providing people with clear information about healthy choices and could be implemented at little cost.

It's difficult to understand how taking down the food information website matches the government's stated need to cut long-term health costs. Where do the priorities of Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash lie - with the nation's health or the processed food and liquor industries?

Pamela Simmons, Woodend

Minister on the money

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, regarding the sustainability of pensions, says "if we want to keep spending more, at the end of the day we would have to tax more''. Now he is getting the hang of it.

Dawn Richards, Huntingdale

Desire is decades late

Andrea Coote, Liberal MP for the Southern Metropolitan Region, recently put a flyer in my letterbox to assure me there would be no ''inappropriate development'' at Albert Park and it would forever remain a ''treasure'' and a ''green space in the heart of Melbourne for all to enjoy''.

I suggest Ms Coote get out her myki card and take a trip on the No.96 tram. There she can view an ugly racing car garage where there once were sporting fields, concrete parking lots where there once were 200-year-old trees, and fencing and grandstands and construction making it impossible for anyone to enjoy what ''green space'' is left.

Ms Coote conveniently forgets that it was her political party that built the garage and cut the trees and poured the concrete. Her sudden desire to protect the park comes 20 years too late.

Peter Gillespie, Balaclava

Out of the loop

There's a clear reason why 40 per cent of our nurses are over 50 and there is a looming crisis in the number of nurses (''Nurses battle their own medical crisis'', 24/2).

Most of the nurses over 50 would be hospital-trained. Nurses were plentiful when they were paid to train in hospitals and could live cheaply in the onsite nurses' homes. If, after one year, they found the work didn't suit them, they obtained a ''nurse's aide'' qualification and left, thereby eliminating the waste of fully educating someone who will never work as a nurse.

Now? A significant debt for their university education, unpaid hospital placements with few actual responsibilities, and no real idea of what they have let themselves in for once they are employed in hospitals.

Training at universities was supposed to elevate the position of nurses, and it hasn't. Their wages and conditions have not improved and they are voting with their feet. It has made nurses, and us, worse off.

Michelle Harper, Dixons Creek

Generous act

Lindsay Jarvis, a Kergunyah farmer, donates 1000 square metres of land so the local hall will have a guaranteed water supply. Lindsay Fox, a billionaire, seeks to extend his title by exercising his ''right'' to 2400 square metres of public beach.

Liz Morris, Wodonga

Footy field immunity

Intriguing juxtaposition of articles in The Saturday Age (22/2). Collingwood's Marley Williams has been convicted of grievous bodily harm for a one punch assault in the community. He may get a prison term. And on the same page: ex-Sydney Swan Barry Hall is awarded Hall of Fame status. Mention is made of his blind-side headpunch to Brent Staker in 2008: he was suspended for seven games but no charges were laid.

It is a remarkable double standard, whereby what happens on the field is immune from the law. And the media helps preserve this.

We now get to watch ''Lethal'' Leigh Matthews, still the only player in VFL/AFL history to be convicted of on-field assault (on Neville Bruns in 1985) getting prime TV exposure while I have the nauseating experience of walking past his statue at the MCG, where it enjoys the hallowed company of Bradman, Cuthbert, Barassi and Reynolds.

Let's get real with the next assault on a football field: maybe it will require alert police to walk on to the field and arrest the offender. I'm not holding my breath.

Greg Malcher, Hepburn Springs

Prolonged myki mess

My wife and I have just spent four days in Singapore, and used their rail system extensively (''Mad myki stops logic in its tracks'', 22/2). What an enjoyable, logical experience. All metro stations have staff and an office where a plastic travel card can be purchased for $5. Trains run to a tight schedule, are clean and comfortably airconditioned.

Abundant uniformed metro staff can assist with any inquiries. On leaving Singapore, we presented our cards to an office and were refunded our unused balance, plus the cost of the card.

We could have bought this system from Singapore, or a similar and equally effective one from Hong Kong, London or Paris. But we had to have our own unique "world first" system courtesy of the Labor government, and what a prolonged mess it has been.

John Davis, Nunawading

Night too successful?

The White Night Festival was fabulous. However, the crowds made the streets almost a gridlock of people. Next year a barrier should be placed in the centre of the streets to keep crowds to the left. Fortunately it was not a hot night or else people may have fainted and been in danger of being trampled under foot.